This invention relates to miniature electrical connectors, as for example ball grid array (BGA) connectors, including connectors having pin dimensions of less than 1 millimeter in diameter and pin pitches of less than two millimeters. One or more embodiments of the present invention relate to a high performance electrical connector, that is a connector for supplying high current (relative to connectors of comparable size) and high frequency (RF) signals to high performance microelectronic devices, for example, and without limitation, integrated circuits (“ICs”), including microprocessors, chips for peripheral functions and RAM memories.
Connectors are used widely in electronics to interconnect microelectronic devices such as semiconductor integrated circuits (“ICs”), printed wiring boards, system boards, backplanes and cable of various sorts. A socket is a type of connector used to connect terminals on an electronic device to corresponding contacts on a printed circuit board or other electrical interconnection means. It is often an array of female-type elements intended to engage male-type elements of a plug array. In addition, sockets are routinely used in systems for: (a) testing electronic device performance (an assortment of socket types have been developed to connect to a device under test (“DUT”) having a wide variety of terminals and configurations), or (b) burn-in of electronic devices at elevated temperatures. A cable connector is another type of connector that is typically used to connect an array of terminals on an electrical cable to a group of parallel electrical wired or other conductors. Backplane connectors and inter-board connectors are further types connectors used to connect an array of terminals on one printed wiring board to a corresponding array of terminals on another printed wiring board.
Prior art connectors are differentiated typically according to contactor type and intended end use (i.e., application). As such, connectors used in application in sockets are typically designed to make electrical contact to microelectronic devices having specific types of device terminals—types of device terminals contacted by sockets include pin grid arrays (“PGAs”), J-leads, gull-wing leads, dual in-line (“DIP”) leads, ball grid arrays (“BGAs”), column grid arrays (“CGAs”), flat metal pads (“LAN” grid arrays or “LGAs”), and many others. In order to provide sockets for microelectronic devices with this variety of terminals, many contactor technologies have been developed for sockets. In addition to the foregoing, further differentiation among prior art sockets refers to low insertion force (“LIF”) sockets, zero insertion force (“ZIF”) sockets, auto-load sockets, burn-in sockets, high performance test sockets, and production sockets (i.e., sockets for use in products). In further addition to the foregoing, low cost prior art sockets for burn-in and product applications typically incorporate contactors of stamped and formed springs to contact terminals on a DUT. In still further addition to the foregoing, for high pin-count prior art sockets, a cam is often used to urge device terminals laterally against corresponding contactors to make good contact to each spring while allowing a low or zero insertion force.
For specialized applications, prior art sockets have used a wide variety of contactors, including anisotropic conductive sheets, flat springs, lithographically formed springs, fuzz buttons (available from Cinch, Inc. of Lombard, Ill.), spring wires, barrel connectors, and spring forks, among others. Prior art sockets intended for applications where many test mating cycles (also referred to as socket mount-demount cycles) are required typically use spring pin contactors of the type exemplified by Pogo® spring contacts (available from Everett Charles Technologies of Pomona, Calif.). Spring probes for applications in the electronics test industry are available in many configurations, including simple pins and coaxially grounded pins. Most prior art spring probes consist of a helical wire spring disposed between a top post (for contacting terminals on the DUT) and a bottom post (for contacting contacts on a circuit board—a device under test board or “DUT board”).
Prior art sockets typically have a plurality of contactors disposed in an array of apertures formed through a dielectric holder. By way of example, a high performance, prior art test socket may incorporate a plurality of Pogo® spring contacts, each of which is held in a pin holder with an array of holes through a thin dielectric plate. The dielectric material in a high performance, prior art test socket is typically selected from a group of dimensionally stable polymer materials including: glass reinforced Torlon 5530 available from Quadrant Engineering Plastic Products, Inc. of Reading, Pa.; Vespel; Ultem 2000 available from GE Company GE Plastics of Pittsfield, Mass.; PEEK; liquid crystal polymer; and others. The individual Pogo® spring contacts are typically selected and designed for signal conduction at an impedance level of approximately fifty (50) ohms. In certain high performance, prior art configurations, the contactor is a coaxial type having a center spring pin with a contactor barrel body enclosed within a cylindrical, coaxial, ground shield spaced to achieve a desired signal impedance, typically fifty (50) ohms.
Connectors used in applications for connecting one printed wiring board to another printed wiring board can be classified by type including edge connectors, pin-in-barrel connectors, stamped spring connectors, spring fork connectors, LAN-grid array connectors, conductive elastomeric connectors, and various types known in the art.
Cable connectors adapted to flat cables are generally similar to printed wiring board to printed wiring board connectors with the added feature that one side of the connection is made to a flex cable or a flat array of wires rather than to a printed wiring board. Cable connectors adapted to a round bundle of wires are generally of the type employing a pin in barrel wherein a spring in the barrel retains the pin and applies a lateral force on the pin to establish reliable electrical contact. The spring incorporated into the barrel element may be a spring insert, a bundle of spring wires or an integral spring in the barrel.
The class of connectors used for socketing ICs is specialized and important the electronics industry. The recent growth in use of BGA terminals for IC packaging has resulted in use of new and varied sockets adapted to BGA terminals for increasing terminal count and area density. BGA sockets have evolved in several directions. One type involves use of a cam driven spring wire to contact the side of each ball. Spring pins or Pogo® pins have been adapted to use in BGA sockets for certain applications in which the high cost of the socket is acceptable.
Low-cost BGA sockets for mass market applications have evolved the use of stamped and formed springs that cradle each ball of the BGA and provide some measure of mechanical compliance needed to urge a spring connector into contact with a mating ball. Variations of stamped and formed springs are configured to use two or more formed springs to grip each ball and thereby make positive electrical contact while retaining the ball mechanically. Miniaturization and density of the mechanically stamped and formed springs are limited by present capabilities to a certain size. Although advances continue to be made in the manufacturing art of stamping and forming springs, sockets with contactors so made are limited in density by the complexity of stamping and forming vary small miniaturized springs. Further, the mechanical compliance of a stamped and formed spring is typically small in a vertical direction perpendicular to a substrate of a ball. Because of small compliance in a vertical direction, a miniature stamped and formed spring may be unable to accommodate motion of a contactor support relative to a ball mated to it, thereby allowing vibration, mechanical shock load and forces, flexure, and the like to cause the connector to slide over the surface of the ball. It is known in the industry that repeated microscopic motion of one contact relative to a mating contact causes fritting or a build up of small particle debris that can lead to contact failure.
Stamped and formed spring contacts are typically held in an array of shaped holes through in a molded plastic housing to form a connector assembly. As connector assemblies are miniaturized, the molding and assembly process are increasingly difficult and costly, thereby limiting the extension of connectors based on formed spring contacts to very high densities.
BGA sockets have also been constructed with contactors that make electrical contact to a bottom region of a ball by means of bundles of helical wires, wires in elastomer material, cantilever springs, lithographically formed flat springs and other contactors that apply force vertically to a mating ball. The vertical force is necessary to make a good connection between a ball of a BGA and such contactor is significant for BGA packages with a large number of balls or bumps. For example, the clamping force for a BGA socket that applies force vertically to 1200 contact bumps is as high as 30 Kg, as needed to achieve adequate contact to each of the contact bumps. The clamping force needed by BGA sockets that make contact by applying force vertically is an increasing problem as the number of contact bumps increases into the thousands.
As is well known to those of ordinary skill in the art, a primary function of prior art connectors is to provide reliable and repeatable electrical contact to electrical terminals without causing damage to either. Further, a connector must provide a low resistance connection over a product lifetime that involves repeated temperature cycles, mechanical shock, vibration and flexure. As such, contact resistance is one measure of reliability of a connector as determined as a function of a number of temperature cycles, a number of drops, a number of flexures and a G-force level of vibration. As connectors are miniaturized, improvements in reliability are needed to meet the requirements of future electronic systems.
Advances in the density and speed of electronic devices are placing additional demands on connectors. In particular, a continuing increase in the wiring density of electronic systems requires a corresponding advance in the density of connectors as determined by the number of contacts per unit area. Further, at higher frequencies and clock speeds, the size and the self inductance of connectors are becoming an important limitation to system performance. In addition to a lower inductance, advances in impedance control and shielding are required for future electronic systems.
In light of the above, despite the many connector technologies available in the prior art, there is a need in the art for a connector that can satisfy one or more of the above-identified demands relating to smaller size, higher density and higher performance.
The following is a listing of patents believed to be relevant to the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,676,838, which is believed to be the most relevant patent to the present invention, discloses a clamp-type connector having U-shaped elements in a socket intended to grip ball-like pins of a plug. Despite being of a substantially larger scale than the present invention, the structure of the gripping mechanism, particularly as represented by FIGS. 5 and 6, rely on a pair of detents in opposing expandable grips of the receiving socket. Unlike the present invention, the gripping mechanism does not tend to tighten only upon attempted withdrawal of the pin but relies on the boundaries of the detent to maintain position in the socket. If the detents and balls are of non-matching or of non-uniform size, looseness, non-uniform gripping force and loss of gripping ability may result.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,887,344 is another example of a ball pin fitting into detents of a gripping socket. Folded wings are intended to grip a ball-like tip. The invention therein disclosed features many of the same characteristics of the '838 patent.
U.S. Patent No. Re. 36,442 illustrates an adapter for emulating a ball grid array type package. Pitch dimensions are equal to or greater than 1 mm and holes may be on the order of 300 microns. There is no evident provision for gripping pins upon attempted withdrawal.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,669,774 illustrates a ball grid array with sockets that have mounted therein petal-like tines to grip balls of the ball array and in that sense is similar to the 838 patent.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,518,410 illustrates a ball to ring contact where the socket contactor element is rotated by a cam upon socketing.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,264,476 illustrates a wire segment based interposer with coaxially shielded socket elements, where the wires, if resilient and in some configurations may have a gripping function, around an insulative core, as for example FIG. 2 and FIG. 3b, but evidently none is disclosed or suggested.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,846,184 discloses various types of contacts composed of springs that impinge but do not grip confronting contact buttons. This type of contact should not be confused with a ball gripping array socket.
Various other ball grid array connectors, banana plugs with split ferrules, interposers, pin arrays and the like are known but are believed to be no more relevant than the illustrative patents.